Meta

Month: July 2016

It’s been just over 12 years since the debut of the original Monster Hunter in 2004. Since then, over 20 Monster Hunter games have been released in Japan, and a few of those in the West. Monster Hunter has only recently become big in the West, and people regularly look forward to the new additions to the franchise. I jumped in on Monster Hunter originally with Monster Hunter Portable, and started really enjoying myself with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. Since then, I’ve spent countless hours hunting, farming, and capturing monsters in an effort to constantly improve my hunter throughout the various games released over the years. Naturally, I was incredibly excited for the release of Monster Hunter Generations in the west. A greatest hits collection of everything from Monster Hunter history, with new improvements that only improve and help the formula become deeper and more complex? Sign me up!

One of the new monsters is the Gammoth. Remind you of any particular animal at all?

One Hell of an Addicting Loop

Monster had and still has a deceptively simple formula too it. If you were to explain the gist of Monster Hunter to someone who doesn’t play it, it can easily come across as repetitive and boring, but trust me, Monster Hunter is anything but boring and repetitive. Monster Hunter is primarily split into two different modes; Village and Guild. Village acts as a single player mode, which only supports one player. It consists of a fairly minimal storyline, which is interesting at best, but more often than not, it’s not very noticeable. You can do quests as you please, and as you rank up in Village, you get better gear, and you become more equipped for Guild. Guild acts as Monster Hunter’s multiplayer mode. Up to four players can jump in on the action, and hunt together. Monster revolves around a simple yet addictive process: Hunt a monster, harvest its goodies, and then create weapons and armour out of said goodies. As you progress further monsters get hard, weapons get stronger, and armour gets tougher. This leads to Monster Hunter Generations having once again, an incredibly sense of progression to it. No matter what you’re doing it always feels like it’s going towards something bigger, and that’s awesome. Some of the weapons and armour that can be crafted look awesome, and there’s a ton of options in terms of customisation for your hunter. There are 14 different and unique weapon types, ranging from bows to great swords and more. New to Monster Hunter Generations are Hunting Styles. There are 4 from hunters to choose from; Guild, Striker, Aerial, and Adept. Guild style has weapons act similarly to the way they did in previous Monster Hunter games, Aerial Style allows for use of aerial based attacks in order to topple and mount monsters, Adept Style uses last-minute dodges to counter with powerful attacks, and finally Striker Style lets hunters use 4 hunting arts as opposed to the limited amount of arts in other styles. Speaking of which, Hunting Arts are also a brand new addition to Monster Hunter Generations. Each weapon has three exclusive Hunter Arts, and which one you use comes down to your preference and play style. The addition of Hunting Styles and Hunter Arts means that you can play and customise your hunter to how you want to play. Every hunter you play with will be unique, and while some weapons are better with certain Styles, it definitely does not negate the other styles. For the most part, it’s incredibly well-balanced and a feature I really do hope is a permanent staple in future games.

Yes… you can play as a cat.

Hunt, Carve, Craft

It’s the simple addictive hook that keeps you playing Monster Hunter, and it’s definitely the same case in Generations. Over the 50 or so hours i’ve played, I’ve enjoyed every single moment, and always feel like I’m progressing towards something. Questing with multiple players is incredibly enjoyable, and some of the sheer size of these monsters can be absolutely incredible, old and new. Generations acts flawlessly as a greatest hits collection for Monster Hunter, with areas, monsters and weapons pulled from past games, along with brand new ones being added in. You can also play as a Palico now, which is honestly pretty enjoyable and very viable in terms of using it for hunts. They’re way stronger than you’d think they’d be and you don’t have to stress over items and healing while playing as them. The one issue I have with Monster Hunter Generations is the menu functionality. The menus in Generations are almost identical to those of past titles, they feel aged, cluttered, and unorganised, making for a hard to navigate menu which can definitely be daunting for those new to the franchise.

Monster Hunter does a few spin-offs with popular Nintendo franchises.

A Beautiful Hunt

For what it is, Monster Hunter Generations does a surprisingly good job at looking good and running even better. While definitely not the best game looking game on the system, Monster Hunter Generations does a fine job of being a treat to look at. Environments are varied, bright colours pop out and monsters look incredibly detailed sometimes. The game always runs at a smooth 30fps on a New 3DS for me, which was a delightful surprise considering the potential for slow down in a game like this.

The Mizutsune, much like the Gammoth, is part of the Fated Four.

Verdict: 9.5/10

Monster Hunter Generations is fantastic,worthy homage to Monster Hunter as a series. It takes what made all of the past games brilliant, improves on those things, and add new things that further deepen and extend the gameplay of Monster Hunter. Although dated, clunky menus hold it back from being perfect, Monster Hunter Generations is a definitive Monster Hunter experience. If you’re a Monster Hunter fan, go out and buy this if you haven’t already. If you’re looking to get started with the series, Generations is brilliant place to start.

It’s not that often that a free indie game can hold me over for long. After looking into Furi a little bit before its release, I was actually pretty interested in what it had offer. Upon learning that it was going to be one of July’s free Playstation Plus games, I jumped on it straight away. I finished it in two sittings and was incredibly surprised with how much I enjoyed this stylised, bright, and fast paced boss rush.

The game has Takashi Okazaki at the helm, the writer and illustrator of Afro Samurai

The Jailer is the Key

Furi’s story is clearly the game’s first priority to get right, and thankfully, that prioritising paid off. When you aren’t dueling bosses, your mute protagonist walks through the various environments of the jail you’re imprisoned in. The mysterious man who breaks you out, tells you about the upcoming boss and their past. Some of it really got to me on a personal level, and you can realise what a dark world Furi is. The game starts with you being broken out of your cell by a mysterious man, who tells you need to kill The Jailer in order to escape. With this in mind you set off throughout the jail, fighting bosses to eventually escape. The game ends with a twist I didn’t expect, and there are a few branching pathways to experience too, making for a lot of replayability.

The protagonist doesn’t say anything for the whole game, and the man on the right, breaks you out of your cell.

Hack, Slash, Parry and Shoot

The first thing I noticed when playing Furi was how similar it is to Hyper Light Drifter. You play as a mute protagonist who has a sword, a laser pistol, and the ability to dash. You can slash, shoot, dodge, and parry when fighting the various bosses Furi has to offer. That’s it, no upgrades, no character progression, it’s the same from start to finish, but that isn’t a bad thing. Furi has an incredibly high skill cap, and it’s incredibly satisfying to dodge a combo and unleash a charge slash you’ve been building up the whole time. Furi is hard, but never unfair, and bosses progressively get harder as you go along. Every single strike a boss takes can be parried, avoided, and all are telegraphed, giving the player short time to react. There are potentially 10 different bosses in the game, and they’re all varied. Each one establishes theme before you fight them, and that theme carries over into the actual fight. Each boss I fought felt different from the rest, it was refreshing and always interesting to play. Each boss has about 4 or 5 different phases, the last one always being the most intense. Each fight starts with an isometric view of the battlefield, and once the boss is weak enough, the game changes into a third person duel. It’s incredibly fun to swap between these forms, it feels fluid, fast and responsive. Once you’ve completed the game, you unlock a harder difficulty mode and a speed run mode, where you can time yourself on how long it takes to kill each boss back to back. These features, paired with the fact that there are branching paths, makes for heaps of replayability. I can definitely see myself regularly revisiting Furi to try and top the leader boards.

This is Furi’s first boss.

Bright Lights and Neon Sights

It was an incredibly wise decision to have Takashi Okazaki leading Furi, because the game from a graphical stand point is amazing. Furi looks incredible, it’s bright, colourful, light, and technologically elegant. It never failed to wow me as I walked through its varied worlds and set pieces. Not once was I ever let down on its visuals. The art style is incredibly reminiscent of Afro Samurai, and the game is all the better for it. The same can be said for the soundtrack. My god, I love this soundtrack. It’s incredibly well suited to the game, and it always had me humming along or bobbing my head to the tune. It’s a compilation of songs from various artists, and kudos to all of you, because it’s fantastic. Furi simply has one of the best video game soundtracks I have ever listened to. The one gripe I have with Furi is from a technical standpoint. I did experience a few glitches where I had to restart my game, or restart a fight due to a glitch, which was really annoying and infuriating. While it was rare, it was annoying nonetheless.

This is the 5th area in Furi, and by far my favourite.

Verdict: 9.5/10

Furi took me by surprise. I was looking forward to it, but I never thought that I would enjoy it as much as I did. It’s an incredibly well made game, with an interesting story, beautiful world, and elegant, satisfying gameplay. Can I recommend Furi to you right now? If you’re a fan of Dark Souls or spectacle fighters, this is a must buy for you. You absolutely have to experience Furi, because you will love it! If you aren’t into that sort of stuff, I can’t say that you’ll love Furi, but it’s free on PSN right now, so I urge you to give it a go. For PC players, it’s 24.99 USD on Steam, so please look into it some more if you’re interested. It’s well worth buying, even if a few technical hiccups hold it back.

Positives

-Interesting story

-Satisfying and elegant gameplay

-Varied boss fights

-Beautiful world

-Amazing soundtrack

-Heaps of content

Negatives

-A few technical hiccups

Thanks for reading guys! Up next is Monster Hunter Generations. I might look into Song of the Deep too, but that’s not 100% confirmed yet. Have a great day guys!